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Topic: My Recent Experience with Citra (Read 10532 times)

So I've never made a Citra focused beer before - its always been a small component of a large hop bill. Recently, I have been trying to develop hop profiles that are significantly different across my IPA, APA, Amber and Am Brown, so I decided a few weeks ago to make an APA that is Citra dominant.

It seems to me that DOMINANT is the word. I just took a sample of one of the kegs that is carbing and it is intense tangerine and mango aroma, and it seems to have no other hop profile than the Citra - I can't pick up any of the expected aromatics or flavor of the other two hops. I expected more pine and grapefruit and general citric aromas to at least be present.

Is this abnormal or is this what you guys experience? I'm thinking I'm going to be a little less heavy handed with Citra in the future - I like it in the background, but its a bit overpowering for me as a feature hop.

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Citra is indeed a very intense hop. A friend of mine recently blended 50/50 Citra and Centennial in an APA/IPA. There's no telling there was any Centennial in that beer -- it tastes exactly the same as his 100% Citra APA.

I do believe that it might blend okay with very strong hops such as Simcoe and Mosaic, maybe Columbus. But otherwise, take it easy on the Citra or it will indeed overpower everything else.

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Dave

The world will become a much more pleasant place to live when each and every one of us realizes that we are all idiots.

I was at a local brewpub last night and ordered and IPA that had 7 different hops, although they didn't list any of them. On the first sip, Citra overwhelmed everything else in there. Kinda like it was the only hop.

I put Citra and Chinook in the same category of intensity (Simcoe is also close). If I'm using these hops with less-intense varieties, I back off of my normal equal percentage hop mix. Usually 1.5-2 to 1 paired with a hop like Cascade or Centennial.

A friend of mine brewed a Nelson IPA and the Nelson Sauvin gave it a powerful orange aroma. I'd like to try a wheat with either Nelson or Citra. Tallgrass Brewing makes their Halycon Wheat with Citra and it isn't overpowering but I can definitely taste the Citra. I'm not a fan of pitting fruit in beer but a hoppy wheat with Citra would be fun to try.

A friend of mine brewed a Nelson IPA and the Nelson Sauvin gave it a powerful orange aroma. I'd like to try a wheat with either Nelson or Citra. Tallgrass Brewing makes their Halycon Wheat with Citra and it isn't overpowering but I can definitely taste the Citra. I'm not a fan of pitting fruit in beer but a hoppy wheat with Citra would be fun to try.

I've been shying away from Citra, but using it in a wheat sounds like a good idea. But, like they say, you gotta try it to like it!